


To Play the Devil's Advocate

by orsaverba



Category: Magi: The Labyrinth of Magic
Genre: Alternate Universe - Demons, Alternate Universe - Priests, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Body Horror, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mutilation, Religious Conflict, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Torture
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-12
Updated: 2018-02-18
Packaged: 2018-12-01 06:31:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 13,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11480649
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orsaverba/pseuds/orsaverba
Summary: Did you know that the devil's advocate was created by the church? The church could not disagree with itself and needed a party willing to question and refute their decisions so that they may make certain of their choices. Opposition, to throw themselves into grander relief. So they gave one individual the task of advocating on the devil's behalf, to ensure they were unswayed from the choices they made in the name of God.They called this person "the prompter of the faith".This story is about such a person.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello everyone! Some of you may know about this story because you follow me on Tumblr, or because you read my other story Serendipity and the Things Between. For those who are new to my writing, welcome, and to those who are not, welcome back!
> 
> This is it! The project that threw off my scheduling for Serendipity and has wound me up a cluttered mess. But it was worth it! Participating in Big Bang has been hugely rewarding, as I was paired up with two marvelous artists who I am absolutely honored to have worked with. You'll be seeing the first piece of art at the end on the second chapter!
> 
> This story will have six chapters, but will not follow a set posting schedule. The third chapter is likely to come out in the next two or three weeks, with the next one coming ??? Who knows when. It will be finished, however!
> 
> I would like to reiterate a warning before you continue; **This story contains explicit scenes of violence** as well as **the questioning of religion, religious figures, and religious beliefs**. Please be aware of this before continuing.
> 
> Without further ado, please enjoy To Play the Devil's Advocate!

The funeral was held on a pleasant day in August. Not a single cloud obscured the sun as it hung burning in the summer sky, birds sung in the distance and a faint breeze brushed playfully against the skin. It carried the promise of a cool evening and the scent of apricots rotting in the orchard across from the cemetery.

 

The procession of mourners had borne the weight of the coffin all the way from the church to the open grave, their feet dragging as if they could stall the finality of death. Each step seemed to grow more difficult, until the effort of lifting their feet from the molasses of melancholy was nearly impossible. Yet through the graveyard gates they had passed, heavy footfalls carrying them to the newest stone.

 

Each member of the gathering touched their hands to the coffin as they passed, begging for a miracle that would not come. The smallest set of hands lingered, praying harder than all the rest, until his father pulled him away to join the semi-circle of onlookers. Across from them, the minister's wizened hands cracked open the bible, and he began to read.

 

No one cried, no one seemed to even breathe. The minister's voice carried over the crowd like waves over broken stones, wearing them all to formless sand. The stillness seemed almost dreamlike, for so thick was the air of sorrow that the rest of the world had gone quiet.

 

It was suffocating.

 

As soon as the rites had begun, they seemed to come to their end. The gathered mourners held their breath as the minister faltered, staring down at his bible as if he were trying to will another verse to appear. No words of God appeared to him, no miracle struck the earth beneath their feet. The inevitable could not be prolonged.

 

With visages all somber, those charged with bearing the coffin stepped forward, all except the father, who stood at his youngest son's shoulder and looked on.

 

"Remember this, Spartos, and let it be a warning to you." he said. "For this was the Devil's work."

 

The coffin was lifted on satin ropes and positioned over the open grave. With each man holding a rope, run through a pulley, they began to lower the casket slowly down into the earth. It went sluggishly, polished cedar wood soaking up the last rays of sun it would ever see. Spartos tore his eyes from the sight and looked up at his father.

 

"I don't understand, father…" he said softly.

 

Darius Leoxses did not look down at his son, merely tightened his hand around his small shoulder, ignoring how the boy flinched.

 

"Your brother allowed the Devil to tempt him from the path of God. Had he never strayed, this would not have happened."

 

It had been a car crash.

 

Mystras Leoxses had been driving in the rain, and when his headlights caught a doe and her fawn, he swerved to avoid them without a single thought for his own safety. The rain made the road slick, his tires spun, and when he crashed his life ended painlessly with a clean snap of the neck. Both deer were unscathed, and had stood vigilant beside the wreck until the police arrived, then disappeared into the night.

 

A terrible, but mundane accident.

 

Spartos did not know very much about the crash that had taken his brother's life. No one seemed willing to do more than reassure him that Mystras' passing had been quick and without suffering, as if that would console him in some way. It may have, he supposed, if he were older and knew more about death, but it didn't now.

 

It seemed to him that such a passing was just as likely to belong to a sinner as it was to a pious man, and that it had very little to do with God or the devil. When one made a mistake, it was their own wrongdoing that was to be blamed, not some outside force that had affected them. Accidents happened, even to the best of men.

 

For the first time in his young life, his unwavering faith in his father's words was tinged with doubt.

 

"The Devil and his demons," his father went on. "Feed on the weak of heart, tempting them from God's light and into the darkness. They lead men to become baseless, damnable creatures; insults to God and all He created."

 

When the casket reached the end of its journey, each man released one end of their rope and began to pull them back up.

 

"Remember your brother as the virtuous man he once was, and not what he became when he was led astray."

 

A reply caught in Spartos' throat, lodging itself where he was most likely to choke on it. Very suddenly, he felt helplessly alone. When he looked around at the crowd of mourners he saw only a sea of black, undisturbed by the breeze, or the sun as it traveled across the open sky. Their faces became the foam atop the waves, and the grave a gaping chasm at their center.

 

Faceless men lifted shovels, and they became mountains moving over centuries before his eyes. He knew these people, had known many of them since he was too young to recall their first meeting, but he knew them. And yet now they were indistinguishable to him, as incomprehensible as a child's drawing.

 

There had not been a single day for as long as Spartos could remember when Mystras Leoxses had been the son their father wanted. He had skipped classes and questioned his teachers, snuck out after dark and made friends with the kind of people their congregation sneered at. His virtues had been numerous: charity, diligence, and most certainly kindness, but so had his vices.

 

To be led astray implied that once his brother had been on another path. If he had been, Spartos had never seen him on it. This path, the one that led here, to this funeral on this perfect day in August, was the only one Mystras Leoxses had ever been on.

 

"Father," Spartos asked, his voice barely more than a whisper. "If the Devil and his demons are condemnable simply because they exist… Then why did God create them?"

 

His father's fingers dug into his shoulder, pushing painful bruises through cloth and onto skin.

 

"Do not ask foolish questions."


	2. Chapter 2

The monuments mortals built to their gods crumbled and faded beneath the dunes of history, swept away by the sands of time. Religions rose and fell across eons, the gods named, forgotten, and named again. Believers crippled by war and disease dragged themselves into hovels to die, taking their holy doctrine with them. The universe took the form of many and nothing, and left humanity to decipher its meanings.

 

In the present day, churches scattered the surface of the earth as a pox covered the skin, their spires and bell towers grappling for the heavens. The devout called these places sanctum and to the common man the grandest of them inspired breathtaking awe. These tributes to faith had not yet fallen to the tides of time and so they were looked to with reverence.

 

The houses of worship which anointed holy cities were almost incomprehensible in the intricacies of their design, and in comparison the churches tucked into little towns and quiet cities seemed feeble and forlorn. A village nestled between the mountains and the briny shores of a slate gray sea observed its faith within a cathedral of unexpected elegance. Here, then, such feebleness had been forgotten by the craftsmen who had toiled in the creation of the structure.

 

From a distance, it appeared to be a small building made of blocky stone standing sentinel over the village from its highest hilltop. The pilgrimage up the hill was humbling as the cathedral came to loom overhead, its walls forming the horizon and the sun a flaming halo about its spires. The towers were peaked with finials in the shape of a crucifix, carved from the same stone as the building.

 

It seemed as though it had been hewn from a single stone, its walls all smooth where they were not carved into the likenesses of saints and angels. A high archway overlooked the oakwood doors and above it was centered a triptych of long windows leading to a rose window made of stained glass. Corbels of varying sizes hung beneath the cornice of the roof and the sills of windows, engraved with geometric patterns too intricate to be observed at a distance.

 

Such care had been put into the cathedral's construction that it seemed almost wasted on a middling village of no special locale or provenance. How it was that it had come to be here at all was a mystery, for its name was lost amidst records and its origin with it. Rarely was it mentioned by the outside world, except by those who knew of it and to whom would come to know of it in time.

 

Gasps fell from the mouths of young priests, fresh from seminary, as their wide eyes cast about the inside of the cathedral. Outside, the wind was cold and smelled of salt and the sunlight seemed dreary even in the clearest sky, yet inside there was the scent of incense and fresh water, and warmth blossomed against the skin. Lanterns hung in alcoves and extended from fixtures on the walls, their gentle glow combating the cool light cast from the clerestory windows.

 

Pews made of polished wood, deep red in color, lined the nave in uniform rows, the aisles alongside them segregated by tall columns that led to the vaulted ceiling. Before them lay the chancel steps and at the top of them the altar, draped in velvet trimmed with gold. An organ was erected behind the altar, its pipes all golden and engraved, cast here and there with decorative fixtures so that they became a part of the spectacle. On either side, the east end was nothing but stained glass depicting the battle of heaven and Lucifer's fall.

 

Along the nave the priests were led, up to the chancel, their awed murmuring encouraged by the bishop's indulgent smile. He brought them past the altar and around the left side of the organ, at which point the priests came to notice a curious piece of the architecture. From the front, the organ seemed to be pressed to the eastern wall between the two great windows, but from the side one could see a protrusion of the wall and set into it, a door.

 

The door was of simple wood, remarkably plain compared to the rest of the cathedral. Its only feature worthy of note was the silver lock curled over the frame, and the adjoining section of the door. It had no handle, no keyhole, and no apparent hinges. The lock did not seem to really be a lock at all, though how else one could describe it no one was sure. It extended, where the keyhole should have been, into a basin no bigger than a thimble.

 

The bishop pulled his rosary carefully from within his habit, and using the end of the crucifix he cut the tip of his finger. He pressed the wound with his thumb and held it above the small basin, allowing his blood to drip slowly into it. All alarmed, yet transfixed, the priests counted as seven drops of blood left the bishop and filled the lock to the brim.

 

From somewhere within there was a solitary click, then the door swung inwards to reveal a gaping chasm of blackness. While the young priests huddled close to one another, drawn together by some unnamable fear of what lurked in the darkness below, the bishop reached for the lantern beside the door and lifted it from its fixture. The flame within flickered as it passed the threshold, but its steady light revealed a set of narrow steps leading down into the shadows.

 

"Come," the bishop said. "Or remain. But know that if you choose to do so you will never pass through this door, and thus cannot remain within this parish. Do not think ill of yourself if this is the case, for you will not be punished. Wait by the altar and one of the Sisters will fetch you."

 

He began to descend the stairs, unconcerned with which of the newly ordained would choose to follow him. The priests glanced among themselves, all equally unsure and confused by this strange demonstration. Some squared their shoulders and crossed the doorway, following the shrinking light of the bishop's lantern, while others continued to hesitate. Two of their number shook their heads and stepped away, turning back towards the altar.

 

As the last priest chose to step into the darkness, the door slid shut behind them.

 

The stairs led down at a precarious angle made unsettling by the lack of banisters by which to steady oneself. They began to curl, taking the company in a spiral that seemed to sink itself deeper and deeper into the earth. All was silent but for their footsteps shuffling over the worn stone, led by the bishop's steady footfalls. With each step downwards the air became colder, until they began to shiver beneath their habits.

 

Finally, when the descent had begun to truly feel as though it were to last an eternity, they came to the end. The procession was met with a second door, fitted with the same lock as the one above. As before, the bishop cut his finger and allowed seven drops to fall, yet this time it took a push to open the door.

 

The scent of suffering struck the priests as a physical blow once the door swung open and sent them reeling back, tripping over the stairs in their haste to shy away. A pungent mix of iron, sulfur, and human waste bled into the air, thickening it to nauseating sludge that clogged their throats.

 

"Come." the bishop commanded once again as his young followers retched and swayed.

 

The priests hovered where they stood, caught between the impending darkness as the lantern disappeared from view, and whatever vile thing lay in the room beyond. In the fading light they exchanged glances, faces pale as they each considered what to do. They had come this far, they seemed to conclude, and with hesitant steps they followed the bishop down into the chamber.

 

The room was a box carved into the earth with none of the elegance afforded to the cathedral above, its ceilings low and dripping with foul smelling water. The walls were damp and uneven, only approximately smooth and without any form of embellishment or care put into their making. Torches hung in rusted settings anchored to the wall with ugly bolts, as though their addition had been an afterthought. Each torch was a few feet apart, so that the bishop was forced to encircle the whole room lighting each one with the lantern.

 

The firelight did not seem to permeate the room, as if the darkness were a veil that refused to be pulled back. It took several moments for their eyes to adjust to the scant light and once they had, it felt a great deal as though they had stepped into another world, one steeped in death and the suffering of man.

 

The cobbled floor was stained with the faded evidence of every expulsion a body was capable of; the faded brown of blood, the sickly beige of vomit, and strange oozing patterns of black. Along each wall, splattered with the same gruesome patchwork, ran long tables of sturdy wood covered in black cloth that hung to the floor. Upon these tables laid instruments of agony, each crueler than the last.

 

The blades of knives gleamed beside rusted pliers, a cattle prod resting along the length of the table behind them. Nails of different lengths and metals filled a cluster of bowls, accompanied by a heavy mallet. A whip hung from a hook, and beside it a flogger, and beside that the cattails, and beside them a club with a cruel hook at its end. There were instruments the young priests couldn't name, too many to count, all laid out in careful rows.

 

One by one the torches were lit until the chamber and its gruesome contents were bathed in flickering light. Long tongues of shadow licked along the walls from the corners where they had fled to, slithering against the light as though they were snakes waiting to open gaping jaws and swallow it whole. In that moment, the young priests held their breath and silently wished to be plunged into blackness again; not so they could tear their eyes from the instruments of torture littering the room, but so they could pretend to have never seen the  _thing_  at its center.

 

At first, they thought it a corpse, until they became suddenly aware of the slow, shuddering rise and fall of its broad shoulders. It sat hunched on its knees, yet even burdened by inexplicable weight and made to cave in on itself, the creature was large. Once, it had likely born the resemblance of a man, yet now it was difficult to put a name to what it may be.

 

Its skin was little more than a collection of open sores and festering wounds, the few patches left were yellowed with the reminder of a long-lost tawny complexion. Long hair of rich mauve fell thickly from its head, falling over its face and tangled into nests, matted with dark blood. From its temples extended two dark stumps, scarred with deep gouges.

 

Iron pegs driven into the stone floor encircled it, attached to each a silver chain, pulled almost taut. The chains hooked into collars and shackles tethered about the creature's body at the neck, the waist, the wrists and ankles, and just below the shoulders. Each cuff was engraved with a crucifix, and though their captive oozed and dripped, the silver remained clean enough to glisten in the light.

 

Now that the chamber was lit, the bishop set his lantern into a mount on the wall. He trailed about the edges of the room, running his fingers over the velvet covered tables as his eyes passed over each of the morbid instruments.

 

"Each of you were selected to join this parish because you proved to have complete faith in God. Your dedication to His teachings, your unwavering belief, has brought you here to this place today."

 

The bishop paused and lifted a small sickle, observing the cruel curve of its blade.

 

"What you see before you, my children, is a demon. Not the Devil himself, but one of his legion of blasphemers, who bears the weight of his sin." He set the sickle back into place. "Some of you, I am sure, may yet be skeptical; fear not, for there is no judgment for skepticism. I too once believed demons to merely be a metaphor for the human self, but lo, I will prove to you how wrong we each were."

 

The bishop chose from among the devices a pike, as one might stoke a fire with. Affixed at its end was a cross of the same silver as the demon's shackles, as unblemished as if it had been welded in place just that morning. He held the instrument with both hands, as though it were a precious artifact, and showed it to the assembled observers.

 

"This is made of blessed silver, treated with holy oil. It is harmless to a human being; here, touch it, all of you."

 

Hesitation made their movements halting, yet one by one each priest rested their fingers against the cross, then the pike. After the first drew his hand away without affect the rest were somewhat bolder, running their fingertips along the cool metal and clasping their whole hand around the cross. Only three of the gathered students remained wary.

 

Their uncertainty was not remarked upon, but in each case the bishop remained before them, pike in hand. His gaze bored into them, unblinking, until they were compelled to at last touch the instrument.

 

Once the last priest had laid her fingers against the metal, the bishop smiled.

 

"There, you see?" he said. "To mortal man, it is harmless."

 

With lips still curled into a gentle smile, the bishop turned and pressed the cross against the kneeling creature's chest. An audible hiss filled the air as the mottled skin began to sizzle, bubbling and darkening to an angry red as though the pike were white hot. In the same moment, the beast threw its head back and howled with pain, straining against the chains as its ruined flesh was branded. A smell, not unlike meat cooked over an open flame, filled the air.

 

It was not more than a few moments before the brand was withdrawn from the demon's skin, yet those moments may have lasted an eternity. The demon slumped, drawing ragged breaths through its parted jaws before it tightened its teeth into a feral sneer. It bore its fangs at the bishop, snarling from between its teeth as its body trembled with fresh waves of pain. Eyes of gold burned with the light of hellfire, all but glowing in the shadow of its brow.

 

The bishop regarded the demon with a visage of solemnity, yet in his eyes there was disgust. His finger tapped against the handle of the pike, as though he itched to once more lay it against the demon's skin, but forced himself to refrain. When he turned away, the demon spat at his back.

 

"Centuries ago, our forefathers bound this demon to this place, building the cathedral far above to contain its evil presence. Many attempts at exorcism were made, but at last it became clear that somehow it had manifested its true form without possessing the body of an innocent. "

 

The pike had been returned to its proper place, and now the bishop grabbed the demon's thick hair, jerking its head back with surprising strength.

 

"Here," he gestured. "It grew the horns of a bull, and its teeth are those of a wildcat. I am sure you have all seen its eyes, how they burn with the fires of Hell itself. Rarely is a demon so bold as to rise with its own body from the depths, and yet here it rests before you."

 

He released the demon, who jerked its head away with a low hiss. The bishop wiped his hand on his vestment, openly glowering at the demon with unmasked hatred.

 

"In all the time it has been confined here, never once has it repented for its sins."

 

At these words, rage flared in the bishop's eyes and he spun round, taking up a golden chalice in his hands. He came to stand behind the demon, raising the chalice above his head as if he were preparing to offer the communion.

 

"And so, it has become our duty to mete out its punishment. We faithful followers are bound to be the hands of God, His almighty wrath channeled through us and cast upon the vilest of sinners, until the day it will at last beg for God's forgiveness."

 

The chalice was tipped, spilling clean water down upon the demon's quivering shoulders. A second scream tore from his throat, and as he arched away his shackles dug grooves into his flesh. His skin began to steam, fizzing, curdling, until it melted to reveal the flesh beneath; where water met open wounds, it bored down through the muscle to reveal bone. The smell of sulfur filled the air as the demon's howls echoed about the chamber.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

The light of the cathedral lanterns did not seem quite as bright as when they had first entered the vast double doors. A feeling of coldness had descended upon the church, smothering the scent of incense and the feeling of ease that had once drawn gasps from the assembled priests. Those who had chosen to stay behind no longer stood at the altar, and so as they emerged from the stairway, they found themselves alone.

 

In comparison to the place they had just left, the cathedral felt overwhelmingly vast and empty. The priests milled about as if in a disoriented fog, unsure where they should go or what to do with their sudden ability to move freely. Among them, only the bishop strode forward with decisiveness. When the door to the stairway had once more been locked, he came to stand before them, his hands clasped behind his back.

 

"I do not expect any of you to be able to grasp what you have just witnessed now. Truthfully, I would be concerned if you were able to swallow all you have learned without hesitation."

 

Here he paused, casting his eyes to each of his students in turn. None remained still, shifting their weight or fidgeting with the hems of their sleeves, and only a few returned his gaze.

 

"Please make no mistake," he continued in a gentler voice. "If you find yourself without the stomach for this work, then you needn't feel any shame. Neither I, nor God, will judge you for understanding your own limitations. Not all of us are capable of becoming His vengeful hands. If you must, take your leave."

 

The bishop's expression grew severe, his brows pulling together to form deep wrinkles on his forehead.

 

"But if you do this, then take leave of the priesthood as well. If you cannot find it in yourselves to carry out the most deserved of punishments, or witness God's justice in its plainest form, then it is better you do not serve as His messenger at all."

 

 

* * *

 

 

Of the three who had hesitated, gazing at the pike with trepidation and a feeling of disgust that seemed all but ingrained into their very beings, only Spartos remained.

 

He lay awake long after the curfew bell had been rung, his only source of light the moon through the open window and a candle flickering at his bedside. More than an hour ago he had thought to roll over and blow it out, dousing himself in the easy darkness of nighttime so that he may sleep. And yet here he lay, staring at the shadows as they played across the ceiling, unwilling to descend into them again.

 

The room he had been given was bare, but not uncomfortable. The furniture was modest, the same six pieces that adorned every room in the dormitory, and there was room enough for him to add whatever elements he felt would make him feel at home. That morning he had considered which books would go on which shelves and set a framed photograph of himself and his elder brother on the bedside table.

 

Now, he wondered how long he might remain.

 

The quiet village and its austere cathedral by the sea had been far removed from everything Spartos had known until then. The smallest town he had ever lived in had still been but an hour's drive from the nearest city, and the remoteness of his post had caught him by surprise. But it had felt like an opportunity, a chance to begin anew without any outside influence affecting his life.

 

He had been prepared for many things; the long hours he would spend perfecting his sermons, the mundane duties he would be tasked with until he proved his worth, the effort he would need to take to win the trust of the locals. Yet what he was met with behind that locked door was far from anything he had imagined.

 

If he was to remain here, then one day he too would be expected to administer the punishments the church deemed their prisoner worthy of. It would be him holding the chalice, pouring holy water over the demon's skin until his flesh began to rot and his bones dissolved. God's justice would come through his hands.

 

…Was this really justice?

 

Centuries of torment for crimes long forgotten to time, the affected now ascended to heaven and God's loving embrace, yet the one who wronged them still alive and suffering for his sins. No reprieve was given, no forgiveness offered, and somehow he doubted that he had been offered the right of a confession. Generations of the priesthood who were taught only to inflict pain upon a creature who had not glimpsed the sun in centuries.

 

How could this be the will of God? The God Spartos knew, the one whose word he read and hymns he sung when he had felt life was too much to bear, was a kind one. Stern and at times strict, but with a heart full to bursting with love for all He had created. A God so good could not possibly condone this violence, even against a blasphemer.

 

And yet, the one chained far below the earth was a demon. His skin had burned at the touch of the cross, melted beneath the flow of holy water, and blessed silver kept him confined. Most assuredly, he was one who rebelled against God, and surely he had committed a great number of atrocities for which he had never repented. Was his suffering not deserved?

 

Spartos closed his eyes, but behind his lids there was only the darkness and the smell of rotting meat, the lingering echo of the demon's screams bouncing around his head. Sleep would evade him until he was too exhausted to remain awake, and that may not be until the following night.

 

So there he lay as the candle burned lower, watching the shadows on the ceiling as if they may hold the answers which he sought.

 

 

{ Art by the lovely **[Kilkaz](http://kilkaz.tumblr.com/post/162892763796/this-took-four-hours-and-it-looks-rly-shitty)**  }

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I used the [Salsbury Cathedral](https://www.google.com/search?q=salisbury+cathedral&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiF4LL66YPVAhVMHD4KHYl3BR4Q_AUICigB&biw=1366&bih=662) as a model for the cathedral described in this chapter. This is where most of the story will take place, so I lingered on its description for quite a while.
> 
> I wanted to try a more verbose writing style, which I'm still not certain I love the outcome of.
> 
> I want to once again thank my first artist, Kilkaz, for making such a lovely piece for this first chapter! I'm touched you liked this story enough to want to draw for it, and I can't wait to hear your input as the narrative moves forward. You're a delight.


	3. Chapter 3

Life within the muted seaside parish presented itself in an unsettling dichotomy. One half held the duties they had trained to perform and the rites they had studied, while the other carried the sadistic ritualism of torturing the damned. That the two sides of this divide never seemed to intersect was what made their contrast all the more apparent, and all the worse by it.

 

Thrice a week the younger priests were released from their duties early and told to assemble by the choir to await that day’s instructor. Oftentimes it was the bishop who would unlock the door and lead them down into the darkness, and when it was not he it was one of those priests who seemed to share his passion for the demon’s punishment. They would remain beneath the cathedral for hours, learning the use and application of the instruments that filled the chamber.

 

It was always night when they were released from these instructionals and rarely would Spartos do more than toss and turn in his bed once he had returned to the dormitory, ears still ringing with the demon’s screams. In the morning all would be clear and bright again, and his days would continue to pass uneventfully. Yet the shadowed stairway lingered in the back of his mind, whispers echoing from the depths, as if trying to coax him back down below the earth.

 

A month of this passed before the pit in Spartos’ stomach grew so deep that he knew he must do something to quell his uncertainties. He stole from the dormitories one night, donning his cassock, and snuck back into the cathedral when all the lights had been snuffed out and the pews were silent.

 

The door to the demon’s prison was not coded to the blood of any specific individual, they had learned. All it took was seven drops to undo the latch, and should one forget their crucifix there was always another sharpened object somewhere nearby. Spartos had brought a needle from his sewing kit, which he used to prick his thumb, hoping the puncture would not be too evident the next morning.

 

An instinctive fear of the darkness gripped him as the door swung open, revealing the stairway to be a gaping maw of pitch blackness. He could see nothing in front of him and was only aware of the first step because his feet were resting on it. His stomach turned at the thought of stepping into the shadows and walking down, down, down into the cold nothingness that was before him. A torch was too likely to draw attention, and so he would have to descend the stairs in the dark.

 

Spartos lingered in the doorway, toes just over the line of the threshold, unsure of what to do. No part of him wanted to go down the stairs on his own, and certainly not at night without a light to guide him. Yet, he had the sense that if he did not, he would find himself hesitating on this very doorstep for the rest of his life. His mind would always return to this place, staring down into the darkness, trapped between forwards and back. This indecision would haunt him until the day he died.

 

The first step was perhaps the most difficult thing he had ever done, and the second was not much better. The third came easier, and the fourth easier still, until on the fifth step Spartos was aware of the dimming light as the door swung itself shut behind him. Pitch swallowed his vision and with his sight gone he became acutely aware of his other senses.

 

The dead silence of the stairway had never registered, for he had never traveled it alone before, and neither had the vague coldness that hung in the air. It was just enough to make him wonder if his hands were going numb and not quite trust them as they rested on the passage walls. Feeling his way along became a lesson in patience and faith he wasn’t sure he had necessarily needed, each step guaranteed only once it had been taken.

 

It had never been a short journey to the dungeon, but now it seemed to stretch into an eternity. Spartos truly couldn’t say how long he had been traveling downwards, only sure that he was moving at all by the growing scent of putrefaction. He found it unsettling that he had already grown accustomed to repressing the urge to choke at the smell.

 

Solid ground came as a surprise, but one met with relief. He groped along the wall until he found the door and its lock, only to be faced with the sudden realization that he would have to unlock this one without even the scant moonlight the clerestory windows had provided. Another in his place may have been deterred by this, but Spartos felt only a spiteful spike of frustration that egged him on. Patiently, and with great care, he managed to fill the thimble-like basin and then push the door open.

 

There wasn’t a word in Spartos’ lexicon that could describe the sheer blackness that blanketed the chamber, the only way he could think to describe it was that it made the stairway seem pleasantly well-lit. Any apprehension that tried to edge into his thoughts was smothered by the thought of the demon, confined to this all-consuming nothingness indefinitely, only relieved of the darkness long enough to endure unimaginable pain.

 

With the wall as his guide, Spartos stepped into the darkness and found his way to the table on the right side of the chamber. His heartbeat sped at the thought of the various agonizing instruments he knew to be lurking in the shadows, more than able to take his fingers neatly from his palms. Only the most feather light touch would allow him a chance to emerge unscathed, and so he was as slow as he could be, drawing his fingers over serrated edges and engraved handles until he found the smooth flint lighter he had been looking for. It was kept as a precaution, most often lost amidst the weaponry, but he had taken note of it during their lessons.

 

Torchlight came as such a relief that Spartos let out an audible sigh. His urge was to set them all alight and drink in their meager warmth as if he had been without the sun for decades, but he contained himself. While it left the corners in ominous shadow and made the chamber all the more unsettling, he lit only as many torches as he needed to see and left it at that.

 

On the first day they had spent down in the chamber, the bishop had taught them of the demon’s immortality. The anointed silver shackles he wore kept a great many of his powers at bay, including his ability to regenerate his body time and again, regardless of the damage it sustained. Still, he healed, more slowly than he once had and with far more strain, but it was what had allowed for the length of his confinement and nature of his punishment. If inflicted with enough brutality or repetitiveness, some wounds seemed to remain; his cropped horns and blinded right eye were proof of this.

 

While there had been no lesson that evening, the demon had clearly had at least one visitor. A whip had been put to use on the broad expanse of his back, flaying the flesh so deeply that Spartos could see vertebrae through the gore. Slips of skin hung limply from muscle, or in gruesome flaps that swayed each time he breathed. The knowledge that it would be almost gone by the next day did very little to quell the sickly guilt that had begun churning in Spartos’ stomach.

 

The demon made no indication of awareness to a change in the brightness or the occupancy of his prison, and remained hunched with his head bowed. This was not surprising, for he was rarely responsive unless prompted, most often through violence, to show some sign of liveliness. Spartos wasn’t sure why he had expected some change in the behavior that had no doubt been ingrained in this creature for centuries now. It was not acknowledgement he had come here seeking, it was something else, something he was not yet sure of even as he stood there now.

 

What must it be like, Spartos thought as he looked upon the demon’s flayed back, to know that you will never die? That the suffering you endure will continue into eternity, your freedom betrayed by your own body? Surely the demon had wished for death at least once in his centuries of suffering, any living creature would. But how many times? How many decades had he pleaded for release?

 

Despite the demon’s bindings, it was with caution that Spartos approached him. This wariness was not entirely his own; he moved with a deliberate slowness and openness of action, circling to the captive’s left side in an attempt to make him aware of what he was doing. It was not meant to be cruel, but rather to ensure that he did not by some chance startle the creature as he encroached on his space. Considering the circumstance, it was the best he could do to be considerate.

 

The growing proximity brought the demon’s condition into sharper relief and Spartos began to take note of other fresh wounds littering his body. There were a number of small, oozing punctures in his flesh that he couldn’t remember seeing before, which his eyes followed until they found the head of a nail protruding from the back of his hand. Once the first nail had been found, his eyes began to catch the others, beaten into the demon’s flesh with cruel ferocity.

 

A feeling that could not decide whether it wished to be anger or disgust gripped Spartos, and he made to lean over the demon to better see one of the nails. At that moment, the demon suddenly jerked himself upright, rattling his chains and releasing an enraged roar. Spartos leapt back, frightened by the sound as it echoed around the chamber and watching with wide eyes as the demon shook and struggled violently. He gnashed his sharp, bloodied teeth at him and snarled.

 

For a moment he was too frightened to do much more than stare at the demon, his golden eyes rolling and mad beneath his matted hair. Yet, rather than growing more fearful, Spartos felt an almost steely determination fill his chest. No matter how helpless the demon appeared, he possessed an intelligence equal or greater to that of a mortal man. Spartos was unlikely the first young priest to venture into the chamber alone and by now the demon surely knew that it would be easy to frighten him away with a bit of effort.

 

The difference was that Spartos had not come to do harm. Until just then, he had not been sure _why_ he had come, but now he could say with certainty. Around him, pristine black satin laid over tables cluttered with shining metal and polished wood. Each instrument was cared for, maintained, every device cleaned and disassembled once it had been put to use. But the demon? The demon sat amidst it all in filth, smeared with blood and bile and God knew what else. Vile. What reason was there for such treatment besides simple maliciousness?

 

Spartos sucked in a deep breath before pushing himself forward, approaching the demon in brisk steps until he was close enough to extend his arm and touch him. The demon snapped at his hand, making him flinch, but he did not pull away. He stood there, retracting and extending his arm until it ached, watching the demon as he watched him. His vicious frothing did not cease, but Spartos finally found an opening to slap his palm against his forehead.

 

Swiftly, he sank to his knees, putting all his strength into pushing the demon’s head back as he howled and gnashed at the air. Using his weight as leverage, he hooked his fingers around the nail protruding from the demon’s palm and yanked it out. The demon screeched, attempting to squirm away from the young priest to no avail. Spartos set his eyes on the second nail, pushed into the joint of the demon’s elbow, and eased it free. The third was so deep in his shoulder that Spartos had to widen the puncture to get a grip on it.

 

The demon screamed and snarled until his voice went hoarse. He seemed to realize that the pressure on his forehead was going to keep him still no matter how he struggled, and so he fell silent at last, huffing and hissing between his teeth. His body shook with exertion, yet he remained surprisingly stationary as Spartos dragged one nail after another from his flesh. It grew more difficult as his fingers became slicked with blood. Spartos didn’t dare wipe them on his cassock, forcing himself to persevere as skin stuck beneath his nails in little lumps.

 

The last nail did not come easily. It had to be twisted and coaxed from the demon’s thigh a centimeter at a time, pulled and wiggled so the wound would widen to allow it free. The hand once on the demon’s head now pulled his skin taut around the puncture. Spartos’ fingers slipped, his brow knit with concentration, and his shoulders tensed every time he felt the nail scrape against bone.

 

It came free with a sickening, wet sounding pop. Spartos dropped it with a sigh of relief, falling back on his knees. He could not say how long he had sat there, pulling the iron nails from the demon’s battered body, but it felt as if he had been toiling away for hours. And yet it was done; perhaps it would not change much, perhaps it would change nothing at all, but for a moment Spartos allowed himself to take comfort in the idea that he had helped this creature in some way.

 

When he opened his eyes, he found the demon regarding him with an unreadable gaze. His body still heaved heavily with labored breaths, but though more bloodied than before, he seemed less burdened than when Spartos had entered. The priest allowed himself a small smile, to which the demon sneered and spat a mouthful of blood at him.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

In his first venture into the chamber, a purpose was found. Spartos considered it over the course of a week, taking council with God when his chores were done for the day and he was free to do with his time what he wished. He sought not answers, but only an inclination that his fellow priests possessed, which he seemed to lack. If God wished for him to harm the demon, to take His wrath in his hands and enact it thusly, then He would have to give Spartos the urge to do so first.

 

And when that urge did not come, even through the course of two more lessons in punishment, Spartos accepted it. If this was to be his path, whether just or not, he would proceed as he believed to be correct.

 

The second descent to the chamber was far easier than the first. He no longer feared the darkness of the stairway, having been swallowed by it once before, though also because he had purchased a small flashlight he had attached to his keychain for just this purpose. His journey downward was far swifter this time, as was the process of lighting the torches, and thus he came to find himself standing before the demon once more.

 

There was not much he could do for him; he could neither stop the bishop and his followers, nor convince them to end his suffering with any permanence, nor could he tend to his wounds since they would only heal on their own. What remained was very little, but it was all Spartos could think to do.

 

He emptied one of the silver bowls of its gruesome contents and filled it instead with water, careful to check three times that it had not been made holy. The demon watched him from the corner of his eyes and began to growl low in his throat as the young priest settled before him. With the bowl set between them, Spartos produced a worn cloth from his pocket and dipped it into the water; the demon’s growls arched in volume into a low rumble that seemed to shake his whole body.

 

The first time he set the cloth against the demon’s skin, he howled as if he had been burned. Spartos pulled away and allowed the demon to settle, to realize that he had not been harmed and that it had truly just been water in the bowl. Then, when he was calm, he touched him again. The demon lunged at him with open jaws, snapping closed on the air as Spartos pulled back. It took patience, far more than Spartos had known himself to possess, to slowly begin washing the blood from the demon’s skin.

 

Time existed only as a figment in the dimly lit chamber, the progression of moments the only evidence that the concept existed at all. To Spartos, it felt as if days had dragged by as he slowly wiped grime from skin and dabbed at gaping wounds. The demon lulled into silence, then began to writhe and spit again, then fell silent once more. He allowed his arms to be cleaned, his thighs, his upper torso and both of his broad shoulders. It was his neck and face he most rebelled against, and by the time Spartos reached his back the cloth was far too dirty to do any good.

 

“I’ll come back.” he told him, as he dumped the water into a corner and put the bowl back in its place. “I promise.”

 

The demon only watched him.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

It had of course occurred to him when he visited the demon that his actions would not go unnoticed the next day. Decades had likely passed since the creature had last been bathed in anything but holy water, his skin only clean when it was raw and fresh after being burned away. Apprehension clawed at Spartos’ throat as he followed his peers down the stairway to the chamber for that day’s instructional, worry causing his heart to speed up.

 

The bishop was to be their mentor today and he among the clergy seemed to harbor a special kind of hatred for the demon. At first, Spartos had wondered why that was, yet as time went on he began to think that there wasn’t any reason to it at all. He had observed in his fellow students a certain proclivity to begin heaping their own wrongdoings and misfortunes onto the demon’s back. Though his existence had only recently been revealed to them, and indeed some had not even believed a thing like him to be real before now, they still seemed content to blame him.

 

This too was something Spartos couldn’t understand.

 

His peers had become eager learners; they scampered down the steps like excited schoolchildren, taking the descent two stairs at a time and shoving to get through the door to the cramped chamber. The bishop did nothing to dissuade their appetite for his lessons, if they could really be called such a thing. Their entry was met with a placid smile and indulgent nods as they lined themselves up about the demon, awaiting the subject of that day’s instruction. Spartos tucked himself into place beside the table on the left, where he usually stood, and tried his hardest not to let his eyes drift to the demon.

 

“Yesterday a question was posed to me, which I would like to address.” the bishop said. He had begun to pluck through various instruments in search of what he would use that day. “It was quite a good question, and I am glad to know that our lessons have remained on your minds.”

 

One of the devices seemed to satisfy his desires and he turned back to his assembled students, serene smile back in place. Between his hands he held a metal collar, fastened at the back with a heavy clasp. It did not appear to be made of silver, which was unusual for a metal meant to be applied to the demon’s skin. Spartos could not see it clearly from where he stood and so regarded it with heightened wariness.

 

The bishop stood behind the demon and held the collar in one hand, resting the other atop the tormented creature’s head with the air of one touching an ill-behaved dog.

 

“The question was this; why is it that I have yet to instruct you to recite the Lord’s Prayer to this demon? Or the rite of exorcism, or indeed any passage from the bible? The answer is easily said, but I wished to explain it as best I could.”

 

He grabbed a fistful of the demon’s matted hair and yanked his head to the side forcefully, ignoring how the demon snarled and snapped his teeth. It took Spartos a moment to recognize that what had been revealed was an ear, for it no longer bore more than a passing resemblance to one. Jagged pieces of cartilage poked out at obtuse angles, as though whatever had been used to carve his ear from the side of his head had not been particularly sharp. The hole that should have been there was shriveled, almost burned, and ugly scars carved their way around the whole mess.

 

“As you can see,” the bishop said with the gentle tone of a teacher. “It has been made deaf. To recite prayer or doctrine would be lost on it, and thus we think it best not to waste our breath.”

 

“Why?” blurted one of the priests. His brow was furrowed, almost angry. “It seems foolish, short-sighted, to have done such a thing.”

 

“I do not disagree, my child, but think also of the demon’s ability to deceive. All it hears can become lies and promises on its tongue. It is quite possible that once it was capable of manipulating the faithful, even bound and powerless as it is. Our forefathers must have inflicted this injury for a purpose, we must trust in that.”

 

Though this answer did not seem to wholly satisfy the priest, he nodded.

 

The demon was permitted to jerk his head free of the bishop’s grasp, but only so both of the senior priest’s hands could go to the collar and undo the latch. When he pried it open, he revealed the inside to be lined with thin, sharp spikes, no thicker than a syringe. There must have been hundreds of them, all pointed inwards at the victim’s throat.

 

“Would two of you do this old man the service of holding its head in place?” the bishop chuckled. “I am not as strong as I used to be.”

 

Before Spartos could consider if he ought to step forward, if only to disguise his hand in the demon’s cleanly condition, four of his peers had already leapt to the bishop’s aid. Two of them made it first, fisting their hands in thick mulberry hair to pull and bite their nails into his scalp. The demon writhed, trying in vain to escape the hands holding him in place, as the bishop slid the collar around his throat. As soon as it was closed and latched, blood began to seep from beneath the iron band.

 

The lesson continued without further attention to anything but the suffering of their prisoner. Each priest who so desired selected a weapon from among the plethora of devices and used it to beat the demon until he howled. The screams made his chest expand and his throat undulate, and so the collar pushed deeper holes into his flesh. By the third beating, blood had begun to bubble over his lips and his screams were choked under the bile beginning to fill his throat.

 

Spartos was one of few who remained where they stood, watching as the bishop praised and congratulated those who took to action. He addressed the bystanders as a lecturer spoke to an audience, explaining the process and implications of what they had done. The more the demon screamed, the more the collar tore into him.

 

A strike to his chin made an audible cracking sound as bone shattered beneath the force of the blow, and sent his head flying back. It was not the first bone to break, his right arm hung at a strange angle and his ribs had begun to bruise. What made the strike to his chin truly gruesome was how the spikes slit his throat open, carving long, neat lines into his neck. The blood came in beads first, spilling down his skin from the slits like tears, until all at once they began to pour in rivulets down his neck.

 

The demon gurgled and quivered, suspended between the blessed relief of death and the agony of life as he choked on his own blood.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Neither the bishop nor his fellow priests ever made mention of the demon’s cleanliness when they had first entered the chamber. It was foolish to believe it had gone unnoticed, though he wished desperately it had, for the bishop was an uncannily observant man. Why no attention had been paid to the act of kindness was a mystery to Spartos, yet it emboldened him to do it once more. Though it was a thankless, time consuming task, he began to descend the blackened stairs to care for the demon whenever he felt his disappearance would go unnoticed.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Parishioners paused to bid him a good morning as Spartos made his way towards the altar. He gave each of them a few moments of attention, inquiring after their families and friends and listening to their answers with polite attentiveness. It was repetitious, but reaffirming, to tell each of him that he was well and that yes, he was enjoying life in their quiet parish. They all looked so pleased to hear him say it that when the next asked how he was and if he was comfortable, he hardly minded saying it again.

 

Most of the candles on the rack had already been lit by the time Spartos reached it, but he found one among them that had burned low enough that no one seemed to have bothered with it. It took several moments for the curled wick to take light, flickering faintly before bursting to life with a vigor that almost outdid those around it. Spartos smiled, watching the dancing flame for a moment, before returning to the pews.

 

He found an empty row near the front and settled himself near the middle. The bible he rested on his knees had once belonged to his brother, a very long time ago. Its spine was creased and its cover was faded, the pages worn thin after being thumbed through for more than a decade. When he opened it, he did so with the tenderness and care one might show an object of ancient value, easily broken.

 

Spartos’ mind settled into a tranquil hum to the tune of the murmured prayers around him. His fingers traced the words of the passage he had chosen to read that day, each word familiar and comforting as he followed them. The passage was short enough that only a few minutes passed between when he began to read and when he finished and set his bible aside. He breathed deeply, then exhaled slowly as he slipped to his knees, pressing his hands together in prayer.

 

“O holy father,” he spoke softly. “I wish to give thanks for all you have provided, for myself and for this village, and pray that you continue to grace us with your kindness and bounty in the coming seasons. As your humble servant I will endeavor to provide for these people as a guide and companion to their spiritual enlightenment as I seek my own.

 

And if I may trouble you, I would once more like to take council with your grace and wisdom in the hope that I will be led down the righteous path.”

 

Here, he paused. This was neither the first, nor likely to be the last time he had sought God’s guidance since coming to this parish. The cause of his uncertainty was the demon, as it always seemed to be, which may speak to an answer in and of itself. When Spartos continued his prayer, it was silently, so that his concerns may be kept between himself and God.

 

_Yesterday, I found that an iron pike had been driven through the demon’s belly when before I arrived. It had been left there by whomever impaled him, and I do not know if it was in an effort to hamper my actions or simply in an act of disinterest and cruelty. My hands still ache from pulling and pulling at it, though they are unmarked, as I wrapped them in cloth before I began._

 

_I cannot say how long I pulled at the pike, it felt as if it may have been days, though I know it could not have been. It moved so slowly, less than an inch at a time. I had to brace one foot against his back for leverage, and I could not help apologizing the entire time after. When the pike came free, I gave a prayer of thanks to You for I do not think I could have gone on much longer._

 

_Though I still cannot understand how man can inflict such atrocities, even against our enemies, it is not the pike that has weighed on my mind. When the belly is pierced, the victim is forced to regurgitate its contents. I did not know this, not until last night, though in retrospect I suppose it makes a great deal of sense. The demon’s vomit was nothing but blood, thickened with mucus. At first I was sure something else must be in it, but I realized quickly that it was merely the dark color of his blood playing tricks on me._

 

_A demon need not eat, this I know, but it occurs to me that he has been starved now for centuries, if the bishop is to be believed. Centuries, without a single morsel! I cannot imagine going more than a week’s fast before the hunger would become too much for me. The necessity of it is beside the point, I think. Even if the demon need only eat for the pleasure of taste, then surely by now he must know only the flavor of his own blood._

 

That night, dinner would be served in the dormitory cafeteria as it always was. Grace would be said and Spartos would sup with his fellow priests, the deacons, the pastors, the bishop and the minister. The food was always simple, but filling and delicious enough that most nights the younger clergymen found room for seconds. Usually, Spartos was not among them, but tonight he would suddenly feel the urge to partake of more while he returned to his room to study.

 

The dry portions of his second meal would be concealed within a handkerchief and tucked away under his habit with the other items he had taken to hiding on his person when he went to visit thedemon. It would not be much, some bread, perhaps dried meat if he were lucky, but it would be something.

 

_I have not yet grasped the motives behind the torment that I bear witness to time and again. When I ask, each person provides me a different answer, even the bishop himself. No one seems to be wholly sure why, or how, it is that the demon came to be confined beneath this cathedral. They do not care. It is enough for them to know that he is there, and he is in their eyes evil, and that they may punish him as severely as they believe to be necessary._

 

_They claim this is your will, o Lord, but I still cannot fathom it being so. I wonder if I am interpreting your words incorrectly, if I have missed your tone entirely in all the years that I have read the bible. You have yet to implore me to leave the demon to his suffering, and I still lack the quality that my peers seem to possess that allows them to take solace in his pain._

 

_Can I assume, then, that this is your will? That I am walking just the path you have intended for me? I do not ask for much, even your silence is answer, but please. Continue to guide me to my purpose._

 

“Amen.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

“Ah— _ow_!”

 

Spartos yanked his hand away from the demon’s mouth and winced down at the jagged cut on the heel of his palm. He prodded at the incision gingerly, unnerved by the amount of his own blood wetting his skin, but was relieved to find it was not nearly as deep as it looked. Given a few moments, the blood flow would stop and the cut would begin to scab, though it would no doubt throb for hours. At least then he would not have to concern himself terribly with bandages or cleaning, though how he was going to explain the injury at all was not something he had been prepared for.

 

“Oh well.” he sighed, then addressed the demon. “I’m sorry about that, I should have been paying more attention. I hope I didn’t startle you.”

 

His apologies fell on deaf ears as the demon dragged his tongue over the razor points of his teeth, which had just lacerated Spartos’ skin. The dried apricots scattered over the stone floor held his full attention, even as the young priest began plucking them up and setting them aside. They were speckled with dust now, some muddied with blood, neither of which the demon was likely to care about. But Spartos did. Feeding this lamed creature soiled food seemed far too insulting, whether it mattered to him or not.

 

A second, smaller handful of clean apricots was offered to the ravenous demon, who began to devour them straight from Spartos’ palm. As he watched him, mindful of teeth and the harsh movements of his jaw, he allowed his mind to wander. It had been alarmingly easy to convince the demon to eat from the palm of his hand the first time he brought food into the chamber. Spartos could think of ten ways he could cause the demon harm by feeding him, though each and every one disgusted him completely. Surely he was not the first to realize such avenues of torment existed.

 

Had it been trust, then, that the demon was showing him? Spartos doubted it. He was sure that what it was was a _hunger_ the depth and breadth of which he could not even begin to comprehend. Something that had gnawed away at the demon so terribly that he would risk poison, shards of glass, tacks, or even mold and maggots, to quench. That kind of desperation would have seemed preposterous to him, had he not seen it himself.

 

“I’m going to try to befriend the cook.” Spartos confided in the demon thoughtfully. “Well, I already have I suppose.”

 

He tilted his hand slightly, tipping the last of the apricots into the demon’s waiting mouth.

 

“She’s a sweet woman, but her visage is most unkind, so I don’t think many try to talk to her. I think if I ask her for more dried goods to tuck away in my dresser, she’ll oblige me. I will need to think of a way to repay her, since I do feel bad for misleading her, but--”

 

The fine points of sharpened fangs dragged over the sensitive skin of Spartos’ palm. He sucked in a breath, awaiting a second sharp pain that would ricochet up his arm, only to be startled when it didn’t come. Slowly, he exhaled as the demon’s mouth pressed against his skin.

 

“I’m sorry, there isn’t any more…” he murmured, drawing his hand away.

 

A sudden, throaty growl reverberated up from the demon’s chest. Spartos froze, all at once very aware of his breathing, the dried blood on his hand, the way his fingers twitched ever so slightly. He was caught between pulling quickly away and remaining incredibly still, unsure which was the choice less likely to lose him his fingers. Had he angered the demon somehow, or had that merely been an expression which he was unable to read?

 

Fear became confusion and confusion then melted into fascination as the demon widened his mouth and pressed the flat of his tongue against the young priest’s palm. A low rumble started in the captive creature’s chest that carried all the way up to his throat, shivering along his tongue. He traced the trickle of dried blood languidly, following its curving path to the heel of Spartos’ palm, along the seam of the tear he had caused. Wet tongue and dry lips sealed over the cut, sucking and licking as though his flesh were just as delectable as the apricots.

 

Spartos chose to remain still and try not to think of how his stomach flipped with every pass of the demon’s tongue over his skin. The inside of his mouth was hot, almost scalding, so much so that it had left red imprints on the paleness of his flesh, yet it wasn’t painful. Each stroke of his tongue over the split skin was soothing, pulling the pain away until it was but a dull ache. When his mouth drew from the priest’s skin, the cut was nearly sealed shut.

 

Awed, Spartos couldn’t help but examining his palm, pressing his fingertips to the slit which was now barely visible. He raised his eyes and met the demon’s burning stare, looking unflinchingly into the golden depths of his irises. There was nothing but a cast of gold, any emotions hidden under the molten heat.

 

“…Thank you.” Spartos murmured.

 

His stomach flipped again when the demon smiled.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Life within the muted seaside parish presented itself as a balancing act between tutelage and judgment, set upon a tightrope made of his own faith. That which the bishop sought to teach him was interpreted through hours of meditation, during which he allowed his mind to ponder the difference between right and wrong, and where the punishment of evil blended into evil itself. Spartos could debate the dark and light of the world for decades if he wished to, but each circumstance was inevitably singular unto itself.

 

Of one thing he was sure; whether by the word of God or not, deserved or otherwise, the practices carried out in the chamber far below were of the most vile creation man was capable of. The bishop in particular hid self-righteousness in the guise of piousness, satisfied to claim his actions to be the will of God so he might be freed of the burden of his own cruelty. Man, Spartos knew, was neither good nor evil. They had been given free will and individuality, and through both they might exhibit both a benign and malicious temperament.

 

Before his assignment to the parish and its crusade against the demon it held captive, Spartos had considered the church to be at least inclined towards goodness. Now, he could not be sure. God, and faith in Him, was surely as divine as it had been before he had borne witness to the torture that haunted him at night; it was those who spoke in His name that fell into question. The deacons and the ministers all preached forgiveness and empathy, to turn with kindness and openness of heart to all that you met, yet they all committed violent atrocities without a thought to repentance.

 

What truly bothered Spartos was not that there was a dichotomy between the words and behaviors of men, but that they refused to acknowledge it. And if they could not make peace with the contrasting sides of themselves, then did they truly know themselves at all?

 

He posed these questions to the demon at times, musing aloud to fill the silence of his prison. Bathing the beastly man had adopted enough of a repetitious pattern that Spartos could often allow his mind to wander freely as he did it. He would mull over the scriptures that he had most recently read and the actions of the clergy around him, considerably in relation to the demon he was tending to as he pondered. A one-sided conversation offered little in the way of debate, but voicing his thoughts aloud allowed him to interpret them more clearly.

 

The demon, so long as he was being bathed and fed, seemed to neither care nor acknowledge when he was being spoken to. There were days when Spartos spoke for the entirety of his time at the demon’s side, and others where he spoke only briefly at one point during his entire visit. In either case, he verbalized his thoughts without warning, blurting what rolled off his tongue into the silence.

 

“There was a christening today.”

 

Spartos dipped his cloth into the basin of water at his side, scrubbing two corners together to rinse as much blood from the rag as he could.

 

“It was a little girl, small enough to fit in the crook of your arm. She didn’t have a hair on her head, but she smiled and laughed at everyone she saw, like the whole world delighted her simply by its existence. She never cried or screamed, just kept looking around at everything.”

 

The demon rolled his neck, then huffed as his hair was pushed back from his face, knots tugged at no matter how mindful Spartos tried to be. When the damp cloth pressed to his cheek his eyes rolled shut, a familiar contented growl beginning to rumble in his throat.

 

“The bishop performed the rites himself.” Spartos went on. “When he had her in his arms he was… He was very gentle. Even at a distance, I could see that he treated her as if she were made of porcelain, as if the lightest touch could break her. There was warmth in his smile and he spoke with such sincerity…”

 

Hours had passed since then, long enough that the sun had fallen into the sea and the newly christened babe was surely fast asleep in her crib. Yet even now, Spartos could recall the intense feeling of unease that had overwhelmed him as he watched the bishop hold the newborn child. Though he had listened to his sermons and watched him baptize several of the parishioners, it was this that had brought out a most volatile reaction in him.

 

“The sight of him holding that infant disturbed me more than I can describe. Just two nights ago, I had watched him as he opened your chest and broke your ribs one by one. All I could think was how easily he might do the same to that child.”

 

His eyes had never left the bishop, not for the entire length of the christening. Though he had known that the man would never cause the child harm, a sense of peril had gripped him so tightly that his every muscle had been tensed as if readying him to spring to action at the first call.

 

“I have tried, since coming here, to find some peace with the duality of this place. But I do not know how, do not think that I _can_ , reconcile with that.”

 

Spartos swiped the cloth over the demon’s face a second time, just to ensure he had cleaned all the blood from his skin. An open cut on his cheek oozed grotesquely, but there was nothing to be done about that besides wait for it to heal on its own. He supposed in a way his circumstance was the same; there was little to be done about it besides wait and see how things progressed, and continue onwards until a point at which he could no longer do so.

 

Not a satisfying conclusion to come to by any means, and Spartos sighed as he dropped the rag in favor of opening the parcel where he kept that night’s meal.

 

“If it is peace you seek, then I would think it better to leave this place entirely; for it does not exist here.”

 

Spartos stilled.

 

No voice had ever sounded quite as this one did; as though it had not been used in many years, left instead to collect dust and mildew in some dark crevice of the creature’s chest. It rasped on unused vocal chords, quiet when compared to his own, yet it echoed within the chamber. He did not need to look to know who had spoken, yet still Spartos slowly turned his head to meet the eyes of the demon.

 

The demon’s mouth curled into a mockery of amusement.

 

“Yes, little cleric, I can hear you.”

 

Never had Spartos felt the urge to go slack-jawed with surprise and suspected it was only nervous tension that prevented him from gaping foolishly at the demon.

 

“The bishop said you were deaf.” he said, to which the demon scoffed.

 

“That man says many things, few of which he truly understands. Come little cleric, do you believe everything he says to you?”

 

Spartos did not dwell on the answer to that question, for it was not one he was yet willing to face. He retorted instead with a query of his own;

 

“If you aren’t deaf, then why have you feigned being so for so long?”

 

“I dislike being screamed at.” the demon replied simply. “They think I cannot hear them, so they rarely bother to raise their voices or spew profanities in my face. Their tongues also grow far looser, but that aids me none.”

 

“It doesn’t?”

 

“Are you worried I will spill your secrets, little cleric?”

 

A husky chortle trembled its way from the demon’s throat, shaking his shoulders and chiming the chains that bound him.

 

“Worry not. What good would it do me to betray your confidence? You are the only living soul to treat me with kindness, your compassion is the only thing I have remaining to take comfort in.”

 

It was a confounding mixture of emotions that Spartos found himself contending with. As unnerved as he was by the demon’s sudden vocalness and the knowledge that his every vented frustration and questioned point of belief had been heard, he was also touched. Kindness did not need thanks, no charity was done in the interest of self-gratification but still, it was nice to know that his actions had an effect.

 

Of course the question was where then to go from here? Without a voice through which to verbalize himself, the demon had been almost a living metaphor through which Spartos found himself observing the world. There was a certain abstract quality to the way he had viewed the demon that had quite suddenly been done away with. He vacillated between childlike curiosity and ingrained wariness, but neither felt to be the proper reaction.

 

Then, he supposed, it was best to continue forward with the same openness of mind as he had had before. And this conclusion alone cleared the disarray from his thoughts and returned his composure to him.

 

“Do you have a name?” he asked.

 

The demon’s gleaming eyes were unavoidable while his hair remained tucked away from his face, forcing Spartos to meet his gaze as he considered him.

 

“I was called Sinbad.” the demon said. “You may call me the same.”

 

“Sinbad…” Spartos repeated thoughtfully, testing the pronunciation on his tongue. His accent didn’t quite carry the richness the demon imbued into the name, and he didn’t hit the vowels with the same sharpness, but it was easy to say.

 

“It’s a pleasure to formally meet you. My name is Spartos.”

 

Sinbad bowed his head with a flourish, mocking smile still twisting his chapped lips.

 

“I am at your service, little cleric.” he said. “Do with me as you will.”

 

And thus, Spartos came to speak with the imprisoned hellion, who had so long suffered in silence without companionship. In years to come, this moment would be recalled with a nostalgic fondness tinged, for a moment, with uncertainty. For this first introduction marked the beginning of a twisted journey that would shape the remainder of Spartos’ mortal life, and perhaps a great deal of whatever came after as well.


End file.
